Interesting. They just finished the "silver line" that goes through downtown Addison and right past the airport there (and crosses over DNT, blocking the service road). It has absolutely f****d the traffic in that area at certain times of day. Rarely see a soul on the thing.

DART rail has never been a wise use of taxpayer money - expensive and unable to adapt. Buses, on the other hand, can still provide flexible, efficient transportation for denser areas (until driverless becomes widespread). I've read studies in the past that a contributing factor to Arlington being unable to attract large companies (jobs) was the lack of public transportation. Without a stable tax base, that city has been circling the drain for a generation.

Chetos said:

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rsf0626 said:

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Real bummer for people who use DART to commute to/from work

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

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DART bot or sarcasm?

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Not sarcasm. Its super convienent (depending on situation). Obviously doesnt provide same value for everyone but there are thousands who do use it to commute to work

shiftyandquick said:

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the Silver line to the airport is a game changer for using DFW airport. No longer have to pay for long-term parking or uber/taxi.

Just try to think of what big city in the world that has a rail system, really wishes it didn't and is going to dismantle it.

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DART already reduced the frequency of trains on that line, and that was before these cities talked of dropping out. Just wait until your luggage is delayed 10 minutes, so you have to wait an hour for the next train.

fc2112 said:

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One of the reasons Jerry Jones wanted his new stadium in Arlington was because there WAS no rail. He thus could force more people to pay for parking.

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If he is saying that now, it's a convenient history revision. When Arlington was running full page newspaper ads to convince citizens to vote for the new stadium, it claimed that the stadium would be serviced by DART. We were scratching our heads wondering how that would happen since Arlington was not a member city. Jones was lobbying Arlingon and DART to expand DART into Arlington. Sometime later, there was an election or two to approve DART, or Arlington's own rail system, but nothing passed.

rsf0626 said:

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Chetos said:

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rsf0626 said:

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Real bummer for people who use DART to commute to/from work

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

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DART bot or sarcasm?

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Not sarcasm. Its super convienent (depending on situation). Obviously doesnt provide same value for everyone but there are thousands who do use it to commute to work

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It doesn't matter if ridership revenue cant support the operating costs and service the debt. The CA HSR is a perfect example. They've truncated the service line and theres absolute no way ridership will carry the financial costs between to mod sized cities. It has to go LA to SF for even a prayer. And it wont and it will eventually die.

AgEngineer72 said:

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fc2112 said:

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One of the reasons Jerry Jones wanted his new stadium in Arlington was because there WAS no rail. He thus could force more people to pay for parking.

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If he is saying that now, it's a convenient history revision. When Arlington was running full page newspaper ads to convince citizens to vote for the new stadium, it claimed that the stadium would be serviced by DART. We were scratching our heads wondering how that would happen since Arlington was not a member city. Jones was lobbying Arlingon and DART to expand DART into Arlington. Sometime later, there was an election or two to approve DART, or Arlington's own rail system, but nothing passed.

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This. If Jerry could snap his fingers and have a DART line running to the stadium, he would, because organizations that host events (Super Bowl, World Cup, Final Four, etc.) like to tick that "connected by mass transit" box. But, if I recall correctly, if Arlington had a mass transit tax, that would lessen the amount of sales tax that is available for the city to collect (I think that half cent is supposed to go to property tax relief, but can't recall for sure).

McNasty said:

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DART rail has never been a wise use of taxpayer money - expensive and unable to adapt. Buses, on the other hand, can still provide flexible, efficient transportation for denser areas (until driverless becomes widespread). I've read studies in the past that a contributing factor to Arlington being unable to attract large companies (jobs) was the lack of public transportation. Without a stable tax base, that city has been circling the drain for a generation.

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Hasn't been a problem for Frisco.

Martin Cash said:

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Does Frisco have a rapid transit system?

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Im Gipper said:

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Martin Cash said:

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Does Frisco have a rapid transit system?

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Post of the day!

rsf0626 said:

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Chetos said:

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rsf0626 said:

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Real bummer for people who use DART to commute to/from work

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

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DART bot or sarcasm?

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Not sarcasm. Its super convienent (depending on situation). Obviously doesnt provide same value for everyone but there are thousands who do use it to commute to work

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The irony of DART is that Dallas wanted it to pull people into the core and the core is failing even harder now. Jobs continue to move out of the core and further out.

DFW is the absolute worst use case for light rail in the entire country. An 8 million person conurbation at 16,200 sq miles sitting on the plains with almost zero geographical barriers to keep growing.

Multiple city centers that are adding jobs faster than Dallas. Robo taxis already operating now and only going to grow. People in teslas are having their cars drive them to work right now.

Recipe for failure. Dallas would be smart to invest that money differently at this point.

Quote:

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conurbation

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Well look at Mr. word-a-day calendar!

The commuter type rail business (commuter rail, light rail, trams, etc) is a big, incestuous family all across the U.S. They hire and cross hire employees, management, consultants, engineers and contractors from each other regularly. The Federal Government, through the FTA and the FRA (plus the DOT & EPA and sometimes the FAA) drive requirements and costs that are further exacerbated by Federal procurement regulations. All of this serves to create entities that float from one transit agency to the next. Definitely a good Ol boy network. Technical specs, standards, policies, and practices are plagiarized from one to the next. When I first started at DART, the standards and specs still had the names of other agencies embedded in the voluminous documents. Design consultants were paid huge sums to establish documents and they just copied from their last agency project. I shudder to think how many times tax payers paid for the same stuff and consultants just did a search-and-replace (poorly) to put the new agency name. It's not just DART, it's everywhere.

Further, all Agencies are driven heavily by what we now call DEI policies. Some more than others but all of them are extensive and it's exacerbated by minority participation requirements from Federal procurement regulations. DART has a very aggressive, racially active Board the dictates hiring, promotions, policies, and procurement. That has made DART a huge money laundering and grift operation favoring certain races, genders, and groups. Smooth, efficient, cost effective operation are terms that sneak into public narratives but are not to be found anywhere in practice.

shiftyandquick said:

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the Silver line to the airport is a game changer for using DFW airport. No longer have to pay for long-term parking or uber/taxi.

Just try to think of what big city in the world that has a rail system, really wishes it didn't and is going to dismantle it.

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BART - loses 350M a year
Caltrain - loses 75~100M a year
DC Metro - lost 750M in 2024
MTA (NYC) - lost 1B in 2024

They are essentially money pits that serves only a portion of the population. No need to sink more taxpayer funds into them.

DART was doomed from the beginning as there was never any way it would make money.

I think Dart probably had a chance originally if they had followed a few things

-actually make people buy tickets
-have security to enforce good behavior
-be a little more selective in where they put their rail stops

As it is now, the areas around the rail stations (at least where I live) are known crime hotbeds because people ride for free up from south Dallas and come up to the nicer parts of town to cause trouble.

I do think that the idea of public transportation always seems better than what you get in reality. Most people think it will be a bunch of "normal" people that are dressed nicely and going to work and being respectful. Instead we need to be reminded that the general public kind of sucks (see Spirit Airlines) and a lot of the people that need public transport (ie don't own a car while living in DFW), aren't going to be the people that most on this site are hanging around with.

I know there are a lot of people who are good hard working folks using public transport - so not trying to trash them at all, but perception and reality on this issue seem to have a pretty large gap imo

rsf0626 said:

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Chetos said:

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rsf0626 said:

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Real bummer for people who use DART to commute to/from work

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

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DART bot or sarcasm?

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Not sarcasm. Its super convienent (depending on situation). Obviously doesnt provide same value for everyone but there are thousands who do use it to commute to work

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I've ridden BART, CALTRAIN and the bus when I worked in the Bay Area. By far the bus was the best experience. Clean, not crowded and was lucky not to have experienced any delays. Always able to get a seat in both directions of the commute.

BART was super crowded and dirty and expensive. Can never get a seat on the commute home. For some, they can never get a seat both directions of their commute.

Caltrain was a bit better than BART. Cleaner and some times can get seat both directions of the commute. However every month there is an issue on the tracks (accident or suicide) that would delay commute by at least an hour or more.

No mass transit will serve everyone but bus is so much cheaper than the other two options.

NONE of the transit agencies make money or come close to paying their own way. NONE. They are all heavily subsidized by the Feds. New York transit agencies are by far the biggest money sinks followed closely by others in the Northeast and California. At DART, the fare box only covers about 20% of operating costs. The rest is from the Feds and some local and state. The huge upfront capex is from Fed grants, state and local- but all from taxpayers in various ways. When I first started there, Feds footed 80% of the light rail starter system ( the core in downtown Dallas) and local footed the remaining 20%. As the light rail built out in sections, it went to 50/50 and some later projects were something like 20/80. Yet DART management and Board kept wanting to expand. I never understood it v

This is really interesting.

Aside from the population density and new technology challenges, I knew this would never work in Houston because they essentially replaced city bus routes with light rail....so instead of taking cars off the road and reducing congestion they removed a lane of traffic to replace a bus.

Who?mikejones! said:

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I cant hardly think of worse public investment in the south than public transportation.

How many collective trillions have we spent and how much more is necessary to reach whatever undefined goal there is?

We could just buy everyone a tesla robot car when they are available and be a lot better off and probably spend far less

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And use this statement in thinking about the damned Texas high speed rail project that just won't go away.

It would be one of the biggest sunk costs in history.

I had a new college grad turn down an offer of employment with me at my old company in McKinney several years ago because she researched the location and turned her nose up at the "lack of public transportation options."

See ya!

Let us face it. All mass transit systems would fall apart without U.S. government support.
Not saying that is good or bad, just a fact.

akaggie05 said:

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I had a new college grad turn down an offer of employment with me at my old company in McKinney several years ago because she researched the location and turned her nose up at the "lack of public transportation options."

See ya!

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Sounds to me like you dodged a bullet.

Duffel Pud said:

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Martin Cash said:

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Does Frisco have a rapid transit system?

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F.A.R.T.?

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Someone got it!

CDUB98 said:

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akaggie05 said:

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I had a new college grad turn down an offer of employment with me at my old company in McKinney several years ago because she researched the location and turned her nose up at the "lack of public transportation options."

See ya!

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Sounds to me like you dodged a bullet.

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Yes, I always view those kinds of events as blessings in disguise. Best to have the likely freakshows out themselves BEFORE hiring them.

This all goes back to Democrats obsession over trains and wanting it to be like Europe. Trains in America are great for certain types of freight and for extremely population dense areas and that's it. But even with the latter they are a financial loser as already shared. Thus, they are looked at as a public service in those areas that are simply another tax to live there. Cool if you want to live there but don't force it in geographic areas where it's completely unnecessary like Texas or pretty much anywhere outside of the North east corridor.

Caveat: I think the pleasure trains that are designed solely as vacations traveling through idyllic settings sound cool, but only if it's expensive enough to become a barrier to entry for most of Americans. Otherwise, I'm not doing it.

YouBet said:

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This all goes back to Democrats obsession over trains and wanting it to be like Europe. Trains in America are great for certain types of freight and for extremely population dense areas and that's it. But even with the latter they are a financial loser as already shared. Thus, they are looked at as a public service in those areas that are simply another tax to live there. Cool if you want to live there but don't force it in geographic areas where it's completely unnecessary like Texas or pretty much anywhere outside of the North east corridor.

Caveat: I think the pleasure trains that are designed solely as vacations traveling through idyllic settings sound cool, but only if it's expensive enough to become a barrier to entry for most of Americans. Otherwise, I'm not doing it.

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Oh it is expensive. I have watched a guy whose VLOG is all about taking first class trips on every airline, cruise line and scenic train. Often brings his Dad or his Mom with him. He also shows the accommodations at lower price points.

No matter how great the scenery is, and luxurious the room, train is still a train.

Trains were a good travel option between cities when the cost of flights limited passengers to only business and well off people.

Since deregulation (good), real costs of a plane ticket have dropped down the masses and even lower; see Frontier and Spirit. This pushed the need for general travel trains to zero. But the progressives love themselves some mass transit as it is just another control mechanism over the populace.

Austin is building a new rail line to the airport for a measly 724 million per mile, a distance of just over nine miles.

Currently our rail system carries 2% of total public daily commutes. 98% are done by buses.

I really think a rail system is just a check item on liberal politicians bucket list regardless if it actually solves any people moving problems. It doesnt move enough people to justify its cost and certainly hasn't made a dent in traffic

Who?mikejones! said:

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Austin is building a new rail line to the airport for a measly 724 million per mile, a distance of just over nine miles.

Currently our rail system carries 2% of total public daily commutes. 98% are done by buses.

I really think a rail system is just a check item on liberal politicians bucket list regardless if it actually solves any people moving problems. It doesnt move enough people to justify its cost and certainly hasn't made a dent in traffic

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It absolutely is. They want to be like Europe and they convince themselves you aren't a gold standard city unless you have light rail regardless of the physical, demographic, and technological realities surrounding it.

Ducks4brkfast said:

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JFABNRGR said:

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Interesting theyre are a couple of DART contracts out for bid right now. One is for double tracking from medical center west with new bridges over Inwood and the creek just west. Estimated in the hundreds of millions.

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Yes, came here to say this. Big project. We'll bid it but not sure the timing will work for us.

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Now we know why damages are so high and they want the FED Grant money drawn down quickly.

If you delay track operations for regular service:

• $3000 for first 15 minutes. $50,000 for remaining hour.
• If goes a second hour $40,000 and third hour $30,000

If during Texas State Fair or FIFA World Cup

• $6000 for first 15 minutes. $100,000 for remaining hour.
• If goes a second hour $80,000 and third hour $60,000

$4,500,000 line item for flagging alone.

CDUB98 said:

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But the progressives love themselves some mass transit as it is just another control mechanism over the populace.

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THIS is a bigger part than many realize. Funding light rail was just a part of the strategy. There was a lot more to it. Intricately interlinked was funding and grants for Transit Oriented Development (TOD). Massive funding went into TOD all over the country. The whole idea is to concentrate the population into smaller, more controllable areas. This is not just tin foil rhetoric, it was stated in meetings. The Feds and local governments funded development around major rail stations and transit hubs. As an example in Dallas, look at the huge apartment complexes that grew up around DART's Mockingbird Station and all the apartments downtown ( including converting so many old buildings into condos). A lot of the government funding was under the guise of getting cars off the roads- if people live, work, and shop in a tight geographical area along transit, they don't need cars, right? Just need Daddy big government to provide. Every once in a while the secret got said out loud- limiting mobility. TOD wasn't done through DART, but it was coordinated with DART. TOD and transit were all driven by design and it's what fueled a lot of questionable expansion.

TOD was sold to politicians in unlikely areas like Texas because of the massive money made from it. People who were connected knew early where rail stations and large transit centers were planned and they bought all the surrounding real estate. As transit construction progressed, real estate developers and contractors moved in to build big complexes of apartments and shops. This continues today with windfall profits for a few. Some of the developers even convinced some cities to take over and own/operate the TOD such that the developer unloaded any future risk.

CDUB98 said:

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Trains were a good travel option between cities when the cost of flights limited passengers to only business and well off people.

Since deregulation (good), real costs of a plane ticket have dropped down the masses and even lower; see Frontier and Spirit. This pushed the need for general travel trains to zero. But the progressives love themselves some mass transit as it is just another control mechanism over the populace.

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I'm not sure if the railroads ever made money, in the aggregate, on passenger service. They were required to provide it under federal regulations (which also set freight rates). When it looked like the major railroads were going to go bankrupt in the late 60s, Congress relieved them of the obligation to carry passengers by setting up Amtrak, and also deregulated freight. Now, we have a freight railroad system that is the best in the world, and only as much passenger rail as the government cares to subsidize.

There are places where it makes sense for the government to subsidize passenger rail simply because there is no other realistic option for moving people in and out of dense urban areas, but that description just doesn't fit outside of the NE and maybe Chicago.

Martin Cash said:

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Does Frisco have a rapid transit system?

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Yes, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit.

twk said:

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CDUB98 said:

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Trains were a good travel option between cities when the cost of flights limited passengers to only business and well off people.

Since deregulation (good), real costs of a plane ticket have dropped down the masses and even lower; see Frontier and Spirit. This pushed the need for general travel trains to zero. But the progressives love themselves some mass transit as it is just another control mechanism over the populace.

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I'm not sure if the railroads ever made money, in the aggregate, on passenger service. They were required to provide it under federal regulations (which also set freight rates). When it looked like the major railroads were going to go bankrupt in the late 60s, Congress relieved them of the obligation to carry passengers by setting up Amtrak, and also deregulated freight. Now, we have a freight railroad system that is the best in the world, and only as much passenger rail as the government cares to subsidize.

There are places where it makes sense for the government to subsidize passenger rail simply because there is no other realistic option for moving people in and out of dense urban areas, but that description just doesn't fit outside of the NE and maybe Chicago.

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Agree. Freight doesn't need seats, food, water bathrooms, etc. that passengers do. Additional costs. The bang wasn't worth the buck.

CDUB98 said:

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Trains were a good travel option between cities when the cost of flights limited passengers to only business and well off people.

Since deregulation (good), real costs of a plane ticket have dropped down the masses and even lower; see Frontier and Spirit. This pushed the need for general travel trains to zero. But the progressives love themselves some mass transit as it is just another control mechanism over the populace.

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Trains work great for commodities. They suck for individuals. Their fascination with mass transit is similar their fascination with nationalizing healthcare. They think a one-size-fits-all approach is what is best for everyone, so their approach is to dehumanize everyone and treat people like commodities. It is also why they have no objections to abortion.